Gridiron Genius
Bill Walsh
Champions behave like champions before they’re champions
Obsessed with perfection - pushed everyone in orgnaization to LEARN more
Counter groupthink in the NFL by building a better culture
Seek intelligence, not necessarily experience
Too much experience means you might not be able to clear your head of old ideas to make room for new ideas
Dee Hock said the problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind; but how to get old ones out
Standard of Performance
Walsh’s version based off the Standard of Excellence book (In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman)
Promote internal communication that is open and substantive
Be deeply commited to learning and teaching, be fair
Honor the direct connection between details and improvement, relentlessly seek improvement
Culture
Peter Drucker said culture can eat strategy for lunch
Manage the culture, wins would take care of themselves
Can’t cookup success unless you have the right culture
Scouting/Players Development
See players not as a collection of data and stats, but in context of schemes they run
It’s lazy to grade a player without understaning the player’s role
Scout inside out, not outside in - analysis is informed by detailed understanding of each position defined by the scheme
Qualities of a Leader
Command - the room, the message, and one’s self
Sophocles said all men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride
Ultimate sign of strength is personal accountability
Share credit and blame alike
Command of opportunity and process
Bob Seger told Glenn Frey - to make it in this business, he would have to write his own songs. Frey asked, but what if they’re bad?
Seger told him - of course, they’re bad. Just keep writing until they’re good
Same is true as a coach, you learn on the fly
When rules don’t apply to everyone, it causes chaos
Al Davis: Scouting
Our job is to find talent, not dismiss it - be professional
Background of a draft pick is valuable - Al Davis loved good high school players because what if their collegiate production was squandered by poor coaching or a mismatch in talent/scheme
Focus on the level of competition - huge variation of talent in college—from program to program and conference to conference—and how not being able to compare apples to apples impacts draft evaluations
Davis was drawn to players who were at their best against the best
Evaluating talent
Confirmation bias: eager to see what we want
Remember to never begin with the end in mind
Don’t get caught up in groupthink
You can’t bullshit an NFL lockeroom - players know who is good and bad, who the favorites are
Best teams force players to prove their value
Character assessment
Assessing character is a challenge: too many vairables
Sliding scale of what is right and wrong
Character can only be assessed face-to-face
Belichik’s secrets
Performs an autopsy after every season - clean slate for all, no one is grandfathered in
How to tweak how we teach - take the lesson from the meeting room to the classroom to the field
Connect emotionally on the field, but also be objective in GM decisions
Everyone can have an opinion as long as there is data, insight, or experience to support it
Team building
Every team has a list, but Belichik’s is a living/changeable document
Needs change as injuries happen and skill increases, can’t ignore that
Contentment is the enemy
All-in mentality
Special teams are the heart and soul of a team
Herb Brooks, USA Hockey - gave all the players a test, goalie Jim Craig refused to take the test
Before Olympics, Brooks told Craig he might bench him and Craig though it was because he wouldn’t take the test
Brooks said - no, it’s because I want the guy back that wouldn’t take the test - the fire/motivation
Quarterback play
Walsh belives the feet were more important than the arm
Quick feet, quick arm. Balanced feet, balanced arm. Coordinated feet, coordinated attack.
Timing was everything - spacing and rhythm, it was synchronized
Offense was about preserving the lead than establishing it
Winning (and losing) are habits - Parcells’ golden rule was a QB that had at 23 wins in college
Yards per attempt - shows what a quarterback is seeing and where he’s looking
Thick skin - how do you react when something doesn’t go your way?
Football smarts - study and work, but also how fast can you process information
Defensive Principles
Belichik is not much for change, but believes in adaptation
Disguise is as important as defense - base that tweaks play to play based on strengths/weaknesses
New plays don’t win consistently, but using old plays in new ways does
Learn how an offense works: how, when, where, and why every player on the field moved during every play
Details over everything - inches in an offensive lineman’s split stance are important
Teach defense, don’t just coach it
Make the offense play left-handed - take offense out of their comfort zones by preventing them from doing what they do best
Remember Newton’s Second Law
Belichik likes speed: wants his team doing, not wondering what to do, reacting, not thinking
Hates mistakes, but if they happen it’s because his team is going fast and doing, not slow and confused
Pressue first, sacks second - be strategic, save certain pressure for the second half
Four-point plays
3rd downs in the red zone are four-point plays - difference between a touchdown and field goal
Force teams to take small, harmless gains - this bring impatience and gets them to make a mistake
Middle Eight
Final four minutes of first half and first four minutes of second half
Keep offense off the field by controlling the back at end of first half and getting the ball to start the second
This means you get more possessions or chances to win
Talking is Winning
Talking is winning, especially on defense
Belichik removed numbers on players jerseys in practice because he wanted them to talk more during plays
Playoff gameplanning
Experience is not preparation.
Having previously played in a playoff game means nothing.
Belichick’s guide (1) what his team does well (2) what it doesn’t do well (3) what he thinks it will take to win the playoffs in a particular year
Opportunity period
Giving practice reps to backups because it might happen
Colts didn’t believe that - Peyton Manning took all the reps - we don’t practice fucked, bad idea
Allow players to be ready
Thinking ahead
You’re playing against the clock too: each play takes six seconds, 54 seconds = 9 plays
Maximize the number of yards you can get, don’t check down
World class pool players make a shot and where they leave the cue ball matters almost as much as pocketing the ball
Missed field goals are turnovers because after a miss, you lose possession and yards
Noticing coverages and matchups
All a QB cares about is the middle of the field open or closed?
Check where safeties are - open or back, means middle of field is vulnerable - closed or forward, means ball likely going to sidelines
If a wideout is in motion and someone follows him, it’s man-to-man coverage - if not, it’s zone coverage
Born to run theory
Key to success is repetition, 10,000 hours of practice
But that gets boring - don’t get bored, Springsteen plays Born to Run a lot
Best remedy for boredom is reading and research
Quotes
To live in the past is to die in the present.
J. Roscoe Miller said: I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important and the important are never urgent.
Walsh on three F’s of decision making: firmness, fairness, fast.